Following complaints
by leading health organizations, the United
Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has
ruled that British American Tobacco (BAT) must stop using any
public Instagram account to promote e-cigarettes in the U.K.,
which would include BAT's use of influencer marketing to
advertise e-cigarettes. The ASA also ordered BAT to remove all
Instagram advertisements for Vype – BAT's e-cigarette – that were
under investigation.
U.K. regulations clearly prohibit online advertising of
e-cigarettes, but allow a manufacturer to provide factual product
information such as the name, content and price of the product on
its own websites. The ASA ruling has clarified that social media
accounts, like @GoVype run by BAT, are not
analogous to a website, and therefore, neither factual nor
promotional content for e-cigarettes is permitted. In addition to
U.K. regulations, the online advertising of e-cigarettes is
banned in all countries in the European Union.
"The ASA's ruling is a huge step forward in preventing tobacco
companies from using social media to advertise to young people in
the U.K. and around the world," said Mark Hurley, director of
international communications at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free
Kids. "While the ASA ruling is great news, urgent policy change
is needed from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to prevent BAT and
other tobacco companies from using social media to advertise
their harmful products to young people around the world."
Deborah Arnott,
chief executive of ASH (U.K.) said, "The law has always been
clear that any advertising of e-cigarettes online is not
permitted. BAT's defence that all they were doing was providing
'information' on social media not promoting their products, has
been blown out of the water. The ASA ruling leaves no doubt that
BAT's social media tactics for Vype were both irresponsible and
unlawful and must never be repeated."
BAT promotes Vype e-cigarettes through accounts on Instagram,
Twitter and Facebook. Posts to the accounts feature celebrities
and social media influencers using Vype and other content
designed to appeal to young people by featuring fashion, travel,
popular films and celebrity endorsements. According to the
complaints, posts are also designed to reach the widest possible
audience by using popular hashtags like #throwbackthursday or
#style.
Outside the U.K., BAT continues to engage in a global social
media campaign to promote Vype e-cigarettes on Instagram, Twitter
and Facebook. Despite internal marketing policies stating that
the company will not use models or influencers who are, or appear
to be under 25, BAT has paid influencers under 25 to promote Vype
on social media in Colombia, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico and the U.K. BAT
currently uses social media to promote Vype in more than a dozen
countries including France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Canada, Ireland and Colombia.
The global ad campaign uses hashtags like #teretoaprobarlo
(#idareyoutotryit) and captions like "feeling Vype AF" to promote
Vype in thousands of posts on Facebook, Instagram and
Twitter.
"This is a major step forward in stopping the tobacco industry
from promoting its new addictive products to children and
teenagers. But given that cigarette sales are falling and tobacco
companies are desperate to recruit young people into using these
new products, ongoing vigilance is essential," said
Professor Anna
Gilmore, director of the Tobacco Control Research Group at
the University of Bath, the research partner in Stopping Tobacco
Organizations & Products (STOP),
a global tobacco industry watchdog.
In May, Tobacco-Free Kids and more than
125 organizations from 48 countries called on Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat to immediately prohibit
influencer marketing of tobacco and e-cigarettes on their
platforms. Tobacco companies like BAT use influencer marketing to
get around existing tobacco advertising bans on social media, but
to date, the social media companies have not changed their
polices on influencer marketing of tobacco.
SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
